A Chinese company will invest nearly 80 million BGN in the local terminal

A new life and powerful development is expected from Plovdiv Airport. The government and the transport ministry gave a concession for 35 years to the Chinese giant’s airline “Hainan Group”. The new owners have to invest nearly 80 million BGN in the terminal in the coming years.

The HNA Group currently has approximately $145 billion in assets, over $90 billion in revenue per year, with over 410,000 employees worldwide, the company’s activities are in a variety of spheres, focusing on aviation, technology, tourism, finance, innovation and logistics. The group manages 14 airlines with over 1250 aircraft operating 13 airports and over 1000 domestic and international lines. Annually, the HNA Group carries over 100 million passengers to over 260 points.

Only the subsidiary airline Hainan Airlines is flying to over 100 destinations around the world. Winner of many international awards, being three times recognized as one of the world’s 10 most secure airlines by Jet Airliner Crash Data Evaluation Center (JACDEC).

The plan of the Chinese giant is for Plovdiv to begin servicing more than a million passengers a year, to launch routes to China and other major destinations in Europe and Asia. The Concessionaire will transform the Plovdiv Terminal into International Cargo Flights.

Now Plovdiv Airport is the busiest in the winter season when it meets the direct flights with foreign ski tourists, choose to spend their holidays in the winter resorts of Pamporovo, Borovets and Bansko. Frequent charter schedules are available to London, Brussels and Milan. The lines are twice a week - on Monday and Friday and served by “Ryanair”. In the winter-spring season, the low-cost carrier also offers a charter to Frankfurt-Hahn. It is expected that the new concessionaire will significantly enrich the portfolio of services offered as soon as possible.

A procedure is currently in progress to select a line from Plovdiv’s public transport to serve passengers from and to the airport.